Early Riser + Treadmill Conqueror

Good afternoon blogfriends! I hope that everyone had a restful and relaxing weekend. Mine was so much fun! On Friday I began the weekend with a seven mile run, with hopes of conquering this: The initial plan was to do half on the treadmill and half on the track, so as to avoid boredom. I ended up running four on the treadmill, ran to use the restroom, and then continued upstairs to finish the run on the track. Um, wow- it was super weird. Running on the track after running on the treadmill must mess with your head, because I was feeling SUPER dizzy and weird. I lasted for a lap before I ran back downstairs to finish the run on the treadmill. The miles were a bit disjointed, but I conquered the mill! Have you ever split a run between a treadmill and a track? If so, did you experience the same funky feeling that I did?


The next morning I got up bright and early to head down to Long Island to visit my friend Nicole. The train ride was nice and quick but effing HOT. Amtrak definitely needs to work on their heating/cooling issues. After meeting up with Nicole, we set off to go wine tasting in Long Island. We hit up about five places and it was really fun! Nicole's husband came along and played DD so we both got to enjoy the wine. Wine tasting may be one of my favorite things to do! On the ride back home I housed a ton of cheese, which I was really pissed off about afterwards because of all days to do that, I had to do it two days before I got my bloodwork done to check my cholesterol... oh well! Have you ever been wine tasting? I've gone wine tasting at Niagara on the Lake, Sonoma County in California, a bunch of times in the Finger Lakes and now Long Island.


We were so sleepy from all of the wine that we were in bed by ten. Party animals!!! The next morning we headed to the gym so I could make up the run I missed Thursday. I ran 3.5 on the treadmill, bringing my January running total to 64.1 miles. Yippee!


Nicole has a really cute german shepard pup named Baya who is almost a year old. She took a picture of Baya and I that I was all set to post- it's hilarious because Baya had just licked the side of my face before the picture was snapped so I am laughing and she is looking at the camera with a devilish look. The file size is too big to post- I need to figure it out! Baya's head is as big as Bailey's whole body. I'm not used to big dogs!


While I was on the LIRR train heading back to Penn station to catch the train upstate, I caught a conversation between two women next to me. An older woman that spoke broken English was very distraught and confused because she was on the wrong train but didn't know which train she should be on to meet up with her daughter. The younger woman that was sitting next to her asked her where she needed to go, and then called the woman's daughter on her cell phone to help the older woman figure it out. After that, the younger woman gave her detailed instructions to help her navigate the train system to get home to her daughter. This younger woman's act of kindness really inspired me. Taking the train can be stressful, especially if you have no idea where you are going and are unfamiliar with the system. This young woman's act, which only took up a few minutes of her time, saved this older woman from a lot of stress and confusion. Incidents like these that make me believe in the good of human nature. Have you witnessed any acts of kindness lately?


As I alluded to earlier, I had to get bloodwork done this morning for my physical next week. Since I am meeting with my caterer tonight, I have no time after work to get my 4.5 miles in. I realized this last night and decided that I MUST get my butt out of bed early to get the mileage in before my 8:05 appointment. I am happy to report that I did it!! This is major for me, as I love sleeping in as much as I can and have always been an evening exerciser. It felt great to be at the gym with a different crowd and to have the sun streaming through the windows. I'm going to do this more often! Are you a morning, mid-day or evening exerciser? Do you think working out at certain times of day impacts your body differently? I've read various articles that seem to suggest this. I want to look into it more!


I'm excited to start the 100 pushups challenge today! I did the initial test last night and got up to 11. I could have done more but 11-20 pushups fall in the same column so I decided to call it quits at 11. Lame, I know. I'm going to create a spreadsheet after work and will share it with everyone interested in participating.


Oh, and for those of you who asked- Bri and I are having our reception at the Canfield Casino in Saratoga. I love it!


Have a great Monday!

Less Than Two & Pushup Challenge!

Happy Friday bloggies! I meant to post last night but I got home from a delicious sushi dinner with my friend Laura around 8:15 and was literally asleep by 9. Party animal! Laura is leaving next Thursday for her destination wedding in Maui; I am so excited for her! We had a lot of wedding-related items to chat about. Speaking of weddings, this past Wednesday was the two month mark. Which means there is 1 month and x days to the wedding.... holy! On March 27th we will be getting married here:


source

I looooove our venue! I was sold on it by the photographs alone, but it's even more impressive in person! I had a task list of everything that still needs to be done, which I seem to have misplaced. Uh-oh. This week I mailed in the remaining deposit owed on our venue, and made appointments for the following:

• Meeting with caterer next Monday to go over final menu options
• Meet with organist at church next Tuesday to go over ceremony music
• Scheduled bussel (sp) appointment for dress- somehow I magically don't need any alterations!

I also have to print out mailing address labels, because our invitations (finally) came in the mail! Yippee! They are really gorgeous- I'll post pics once I assemble them. I have a feeling it is going to get very old tying the bows on the invites.

For whatever reason I am most looking forward to assembling the out of town bags for our guests that will be staying overnight in the hotel. We are going to do a lot of Saratoga themed items. What would you guys want to see in an out of town bag? We are going to include Saratoga water, Saratoga potato chips, gatorade and tylenol (for the next morning ;)), some cookies, chocolate and maybe some coffee. Would you guys recommend anything else? If you are married, what was your favorite wedding to-do to handle?

Last night's dinner was great. However, it slightly interfered with my training plan in the sense that I was scheduled to run 3.5 miles. Instead, I took it as my rest today (as opposed to today) with the plan of running the 3.5 today after work and then running the 7 as planned tomorrow. However, my train to Long Island (I'm visiting one of my oldest friends for the weekend, yay) leaves at 8:05, which means I have to leave the house at 7. I'm not a morning runner, nor do I think it is the best idea to do my longest run ever in the morning. So I'm thinking I will run the 7 tonight after work and forego the 3.5... I feel really guilty about it. Do you think this will make or break my 14k?

Speaking of the 7 miles, thinking about running them on the treadmill or the track makes me want to cry with boredom. I've come up with the master plan of running on the treadmill until I get bored (at least 3.5 miles) and then finishing up on the track. Does that still count? It better! :)

In my last post I mentioned that I did 50 pushups- mind you, this was 5 sets of 10. It would be awesome to do 50 in a row. My ultimate goal is 30 for right now, since I already met my goal of 20. I've been able to complete so many pushups because of the 100 pushups training program. The premise of the program is to do an initial test to see how many pushups you can do. Based upon that number, you follow a level based plan doing five sets of pushups three times a week. For instance, if you can complete less than five pushups, you follow the sets indicated under level one. At the end of each week you move on to the next level. When I first completed this program, I repeated weeks 2 and 3 twice. I repeated week 4 I don't even know how many times... by the end, I went from being able to doing 3 pushups in a row to over 20, completing 80 pushups in a workout.

Since I haven't been focusing on my pushups as much, I'd like to reintroduce the 100 pushups challenge into my life.

100 Pushups Challenge! source

Starting on Monday, I'm going to begin at week 1 and follow it to a "T" until the wedding. It is a great challenge in the sense in that it adds strength training to your life and doesn't take up much time! You can easily add it to the end of any workout. Let me know if you want to join the challenge with me! If so, leave a comment and I'll compose a google document for everyone to add their pushup stats to. Here's to doing 30 pushups in a row! :)

Like I mentioned earlier, I'm heading to Long Island this weekend to visit my friend Nicole. We are going to hit up some of the wineries down there- I can't wait! Do you have any fun weekend plans?

Have a great Friday!